Free resources! What do you think?
For my first assignment of 2008, I was asked to make Yenka.com more useful for teachers - basically to help spread the word about Yenka. I've often heard teachers say they want more free resources, so I had a look at what we could offer for free on Yenka.com.
One of my colleagues reminded me of what he has been saying for ages: that we should do something more with the resources in our Absorb series. Absorb is full of graphics, interactive animations, videos, etc - this was just the thing I was looking for.
So, for the past few weeks, a small team of us have been trawling through the Absorb GCSE Physics and Absorb GCSE Maths resources to pick out the best ones. We reworked our yenka.com search engine a bit to handle different resource types (such as image files and flash animations), then started uploading. When all was said and done, we had uploaded over 700 resources!
I think they are pretty great (especially since they are free!), but I'd really like to know if you find them useful. Will they help you in the classroom? We're thinking about how we could make a download feature for VLEs, but are there any other features you'd like to see?
If you find these resources helpful, I hope you'll tell other people about Yenka.com. Have a look, then come back here and leave a comment!
Posted at 04:43PM Feb 01, 2008 by Chris | Comments[3]
It would be helpful if it were possible to jump straight to each resource from the thumbnail. At the moment every thumbnail links through to a page about that particular resource and then you launch the resource from there. It's a two-step process where one would suffice.
That said - great resource!
Posted by Ian Yorston on February 07, 2008 at 08:00 PM GMT #
The animation of " The battery: an electron pump" seems to be a bit misleading because the battery is taken as an electron source and when circuit is switched on the children think that the elctrons from the battery flow in the circuit.
I think this animation needs to be modified showing the presence of electrons in the whole circuit and when the circuit is switched on the ectrons start drifting.
Also in the animation an electric cell is shown instead of a battery.
Posted by k.k.dhawan on February 12, 2008 at 05:29 AM GMT #
Yeah I agree with Ian - linking to the resource would be nice, although specifically banned under your terms of use. If you're concerned about copyright protection / credit, why not have a quick Yenka Logo fade at the beginning, and a click here to link to the site at the end? I'd be fine with that. - I find people aren't quite sure what to press if you link to the 'link page' if you see what i mean.
Posted by Dan on June 17, 2008 at 02:48 PM BST #